Reviews

Check out my full review @ https://movieswetextedabout.com/tenzing-movie-review-genden-phuntsok-leads-a-reverent-everest-climb/ Rating: B- TENZING is a nice enough biopic, and more respectful than most. I love that it’s named after its hero and actually keeps him at the center, and that the Sherpa language gets real space. Genden Phuntsok is extremely compelling as a man with unbreakable faith in his own ambition, while Tom Hiddleston plays the supporting role perfectly. The on-location cinematography, the real Sherpas, and the Everest-versus-Chomolungma idea make it immersive, and I appreciated how few cheap action beats it bothers with. It’s also formulaic, too sanitized, low on friction, fuller of British characters than it needed to be, and slower than its 2h+ runtime can support, with repetitive flashbacks that leave Dawa with very little. I respected it more than it moved me, and I’m glad it’s his name on the poster.

Ever since he encountered George Mallory (Johnny Flynn) as a young boy, Tenzing Norgay (Genden Phuntsok) has been determined to become involved in one of the annually licenced attempts to get to the top of Mount Everest. For him, though, as adulthood sets in this isn't so much an endeavour of achievement, as more an opportunity to meet with the revered goddess of the Chumulungma mountain where he can pay his respects to those from his family that he has lost. His problem is that he isn't technically a Sherpa as his penniless family had arrived in Nepal from Tibet when he was a boy, and so whilst he is welcome enough now as a yak herder he isn't really considered "one of us" - especially when he sets his cap at his childhood friend Kinzom (Lhakpa Tsamchoe) who just happens to be the daughter of his boss. Persistence is key for him here both romantically and strategically, and so learning a little basic English he manages to brass-neck his way onto one expedition, then another - even managing to get to within a few hundred feet of the summit, before reluctantly alighting on the British-led expedition of 1953 run by John Hunt (Willem Dafoe) that includes Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston) and that might finally give him another well-equipped chance to get to the top. In an unprecedented arrangement, he is declared a full member of the climb and though there are still demarcation issues around where his responsibilities start and stop, this means that theoretically he has a shot at the peak - assuming they get there. With the monsoon season closing in on them the party set off, he befriends Hillary and the rest is historical fact. This isn't so much a film about their climbing as an amiable biopic of a determined man who arrived in his adopted country requiring life-saving care from it's monks and who now stood with the ultimate pioneers keen to celebrate the coronation of their new Queen. The real location photography is simply stunning and the use of aerial technology that we have often seen in natural history film-making is put to eagle-eyed use here to convey not just the massive scale of the mountain but the dangers faced by the team as they faced this planet at it's most unforgiving. If you saw the documentary on Lhakpa Sherpa (the first woman to get to the top) then you'll get some idea of the respect in which this place is held by the local population and Phuntsok's performance here marries well the personal ambitions of Tenzing with the reverence felt by his profession for that which they would ascend. He knows that their kit, their oxygen and their tents can help - but if she isn't in a giving vein, then the goddess can make her presence felt with devastating results. It's those elements of symbiosis with their environment as well as characterful rapports with Hiddleston, Dafoe and his envious rival Pasang (Tenzing Jigmey) that allow the engaging Phuntsok to present us with something more than just an adventure movie.